Stand Back and Let It All Be
by balladofbliss
Summary: Nothing is different, but everything has changed. One-shot, post-3x07.


A/N: I think 3x07, Leap of Faith is probably my favorite episode this season thus far. This is just a little Sam-centric bit that popped into my head shortly after watching and refused to leave. (Also, for reasons I cannot possibly explain or understand, I've wanted to use the line "back at the toilet factory" since I started writing for RB, so… that's there too. This is what happens when you don't sleep for more than four hours at a time – thanks, pregnancy!) I hope you enjoy. :)

Disclaimer: If I owned Rookie Blue, no way would Claire have interrupted the food fight. Title is from Jungleland by Bruce Springsteen; came to terms a long time ago with not owning him – erm, anything he's written.

* * *

As much as the idea of a desk job repels him, Sam can't deny that such a position would offer at least one advantage: no night shifts. His circadian rhythm was a lot more malleable when he was in his twenties – more than once, he worked early, afternoon, and graveyard all in the same week with little physical consequence – but in the past few years, he's involuntarily settled into an early-to-rise way of existence, whether or not early-to-bed precedes it. His body seems to race the sun to begin its day, which doesn't particularly thrill him when he has no obligations for hours, but he's resigned himself to the fact that once he's up, he's up. (He can't help chuckling as he remembers puttering around in his kitchen shortly after five one morning while Oliver was sleeping on his couch. "Why in God's name are you up at oh-dark-thirty?" Ollie had grumbled, wrapping his pillow around his face to block out the sound of the coffeemaker.)

So despite the naps Sam forces himself to take when he's scheduled to work nights, it still seems unnatural to wind down when the day is just beginning. He glances away from the windshield, where the glare of sunlight is reflecting directly into his eyes, as he fights off a yawn and wonders how it's possible to be this exhausted while his mind is practically manic. (It's probably a good thing that he's not driving.)

She loves him. She… _loves _him. Okay, then. It's certainly good to know, especially given that after the last two years and her North Bay disappearing act, a tiny but persistently niggling voice in the back of his mind has been taunting him that he's way more into this than she is. Things have been good lately, to the point that he can occasionally forget about how the other shoe has yet to drop, but old habits die hard; though he tries not to let himself think about it beyond the occasional fleeting notion, he recognizes that if he loses her, loses this, the depths of devastation that would be in store for him are incomprehensible. So while he revels in the way she looks at him, how her hand feels in his, it's still kind of nice to have that affirmation. He's even more appreciative knowing that it can't have been all that easy for her to say; while they don't always communicate exactly the same way, they both speak around the truth more often than not, depending on jokes or body language to convey what they're actually feeling. And the fact that she in no way pressured him to reciprocate the words… well, he's had more than one relationship end with that particular ultimatum. Her going the opposite route – with that irresistible grin on her face, no less – confirms to him yet again that he's lucky as hell.

Miraculously, his brain has maintained enough function to keep up with her chatter about last night's events; he hears himself continuing to express skepticism for self-proclaimed psychics even as he admits that it's an awful lot to call coincidence, with periodic interjections to watch the car coming through the intersection or slow down for the approaching school zone. She just rolls her eyes good-naturedly at his passenger-seat driving, with a crack about how he can take his foot off the invisible brake anytime he wants ("Never, then," he responds smoothly), and they're back at the toilet factory before long.

It's like the end of almost every other shift for months as he follows her inside, bags hitting the floor and shoes carelessly discarded in the foyer. They agree that breakfast sounds like a good idea, and she sets a large pan to heat on the stove as he cracks eggs into a bowl. They work in a comfortable silence as delicious aromas begin to permeate the air; he carefully flips bacon while she's pulling bread from the toaster. He finds himself glancing at her more than he normally might during food preparation, and it suddenly occurs to him that nothing is different, but everything has changed.

After they eat and clean up the kitchen (rather, after Andy overloads the already-full dishwasher despite his repeated warnings that it won't work as well), she leans her head back against the kitchen wall, the heaviness of her eyelids more than apparent.

"Tired?" he asks.

She nods once. "Mm-hmm."

"Want to just go to sleep?"

Her eyes fly open. "I'm not _that_ tired." A familiar smile crosses her face, and she gently propels herself away from the wall, taking slow steps toward him.

"Andy, come on," he says. "You look like you're about to drop."

She arches an eyebrow. "I also asked for one more time yesterday afternoon, and that didn't happen." Her arms snake around his neck as she pulls herself flush against his chest, her mouth close to his ear. "Indulge me?"

"Well." He shrugs nonchalantly and bends down before she can react, laughing at her shriek as he throws her over his shoulder and begins walking toward the bedroom. "If you insist."

* * *

"You weren't thinking about night shifts when you bought this place, were you?" he muses some time later, drumming his fingers lightly over her spine.

She momentarily lifts her head from the crook of his neck to look at him before dropping back down. "I know, too much natural light for Mr. Morning Person," she mumbles. "I'll get you one of those sleep masks. Rhinestone eyes would be a good look for you."

"You want to waste your money, go right ahead," he says mildly, his hand sliding up to tangle in her hair.

It's funny how things change. His dry wit and ability to develop a comeback for just about any line thrown at him, by and large appreciated in his contemporary life, constantly got him into trouble as a kid. His mother was too distracted falling apart to notice for the majority of his childhood, but he spent enough time in the principal's office that the secretary referred to the chair outside the door as his throne. (Some role model she was, really.)

The closest he ever came to kicking the habit was when he and Sarah were living with Mrs. Ryland. She wasn't unkind, especially given the nightmares he now knows some foster parents can be, but she _was_ incredibly stern. He'd probably still be terrified of her if he saw her now, even though she's probably pushing eighty and he carries a gun for a living. Whenever he talked back, Mrs. Ryland would make him stand in the corner and count aloud – the number to which he had to count depended on how rude she found whatever he'd said.

After the day he muttered that she smelled like overcooked broccoli and subsequently found himself loudly reciting his way up to two thousand, he learned to hold his tongue around her and his teachers. But the effort it took to restrain his sarcasm established walls in unexpected places, to the point that it became nearly impossible for him to express anything of significance. When he reached adulthood and his speech was no longer being scrutinized, the ability to generate wisecracks returned easily; the ability to verbalize his feelings, not so much.

It's not that he doesn't want to; he just doesn't remember how.

He nudges Andy with his hip. "Hey."

"What?" she asks sleepily into his shoulder.

He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, unsure of how to proceed. "Just because I didn't tell you… you know…" he begins, cringing at how he probably sounds, "it doesn't mean I don't…"

She groans and pushes herself up to look at him. "Sam... stop. I know. You already told me. Go to sleep."

"Wait, what?" He's not great at deciphering her more cryptic remarks in the best of circumstances, let alone when he's been up all night against his body's wishes.

She sighs exaggeratedly. "You said to keep the spare keys."

He feels his forehead wrinkle. "Yeah. So?"

"So…" She settles back down against him. "I know how you feel about that truck and anyone but you driving it. I might not be fluent in Swarek or anything, but I know what that means."

He snorts. "Fluent in Swarek?"

"Kind of a guttural language, but it grows on you," she retorts before releasing a slow breath and sliding her arm across his stomach. "Seriously, though, stuff like that? It means a lot more than saying a bunch of words just to say them. Now sleep."

A half grin crosses his face as he pulls her closer. He'll figure it out someday – how to formulate the words so that they emerge easily, how to tell her about the future he's found himself imagining more and more often, how to admit that maybe having a mother-in-law wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. He's spent decades building walls; she's worth whatever it'll take to break them down.

For now, though, this is more than enough.


End file.
